


wild thing, i think you move me

by emilybrontay



Category: Skins (UK)
Genre: Absent Parents, F/M, Future Fic, Parent-Child Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-30
Updated: 2016-05-30
Packaged: 2018-07-11 04:31:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,358
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7028725
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emilybrontay/pseuds/emilybrontay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Naomi was suddenly struck with the image of her mother in pyjamas, shuffling along the landing at seven in the morning, asking her if she wants anything from the shops, talking to her friends parents at school concerts – it seemed strange, like someone else’s life. She and her dad had been fine till now, why did they need Effy back for good, forever? Sixteen years of radio silence and now she wanted to argue with her daughter about what they’re having for tea, to fall asleep on Cook’s shoulder in front of the news?"</p>
            </blockquote>





	wild thing, i think you move me

**Author's Note:**

> happy birthday hannah!!! i hope you like this!! it's way angstier than i intended, sorry!! the title of this fic is from jimi hendrix's wild thing which always gives me super ceffy vibes  
> swearing and sex references

Cook drummed his fingers on the police station front desk. From the break room shuffled Mac, and he breathed a sigh of relief. Mac’s face lit up when he saw him, pudgy cheeks breaking into a grin.

“James! Alright mate?”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m alright mate, how are you? How’s the wife?”

Mac clasped his hand in greeting, before squeezing through the gap between the desk and the wall, to get to his chair. “She’s alright, she’s alright – you’re here for Naomi, yeah?”

Cook nodded sharply, and Mac skidded back on his wheely chair, and shouted across the lobby.

“Oi Ray! Ray, you can release Naomi now! Her dad’s here!”

Ray, who was old and called Cook ‘young James’ even though he was nearly forty, gave Mac a salute, and trundled down to the holding cells. There was a brief pause, the sound of a cell door opening (it made Cook’s stomach churn uncomfortably) and they were joined by Ray and Naomi, still in last night’s clothes and looking like she hadn’t slept a wink.

“Mind we don’t see you here again, young lady,” Mac said kindly, “Go home – get some rest.”

“This won’t go on my record, will it?” she asked him, blue eyes wide. He shook his head.

“Nah – practically a rite of passage, innit, getting cautioned for trespassing. I did when I was your age, and I’m sure your dad did too.”

Cook laughed hollowly. “Nah, mate – I was a good boy.”

Naomi smirked at him, because she knew, and Mac chuckled and shook his head.

“Be off with you,” he said, “It’s six in the bloody morning.”

They gave the officers courteous nods of farewell, and wandered out into the car park in slightly awkward silence. Naomi gave a groan of pain when the sunlight hit her eyes, but Cook said nothing. They stood by the car, waiting for the other to speak.

“I’m sorry, Dad,” she said finally, and he realised she was crying. “I’m so sorry, you expect more from-”

He pulled her into a hug wordlessly, hand cradling her head. She was still so tiny in his arms – it scared him sometimes. “I’m sorry,” she mumbled into his jumper.

“Hey,” he pulled away, hands on her shoulders, “Don’t get your snot on this jumper. It’s fucking cashmere.”

She sniffed, wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, and let out a hiccup of a giggle.

“Have you been home?” she asked, concerned. He wrinkled his nose and shrugged.

 “Came as soon as I got off.”

“Fucking hell, Dad,” she said fucking the way he did - _fooking_ – and he got a strange kick of pride from it ( _he thought it might have something to do with her mother, the fact she was more like him than her, a middle finger fuck you to her for abandoning them_ ) “You’ve got to look after yourself!”

“I bailed you out, you cheeky mare!” he exclaimed, opening the car door for her.

“Fat lot of good that’ll do if you drop dead from exhaustion and I’m _alone_ in the _world_.”

“If I die you go and live with Emilio in the States,” he said sharply, turning the car on, “she’d be good to you.”

“JJ’d have me,” she mused, “but I dunno if I could stand being around all those bloody kids…”

“Any of ‘em’d have you,” he said, “but I’m not going anywhere.”

“You’re invincible,” she replied cheerily, switching on the radio, “It’s you and me, Dad, isn’t it? It’s always going to be you and me.”

“Too fuckin’ right,” he nodded, “Here – not that bloody Lorde song again, turn it off-” except he said it like _Lor-day_ and it made her laugh.

“I’m not listening to that classic rock shite! This is the future, Dad!”

He definitely did not sing along to the _roy-als_ in the chorus with her. Not at all.

* * *

 

He sent her to bed as soon as they got back in, even though it was half seven in the morning, and it’d bugger her body clock up, sent her off with a kiss to the top of her head and the promise of bacon when she woke. Blinking back sleep, he set about making tea in the kitchen, and as the kettle boiled there was a knock on the door, and everything turned to shite.

Effy stood there, clutching a large leather handbag and looking utterly lost.

“Hi,” she said, in a shaky way that didn’t sound like her at all.

“Alright?” he replied, dully – perhaps he was in shock? He felt in shock. “D’you wanna…?”

“Is she in?”

“Of course she’s fuckin’ in, it’s a Sunday fuckin’ morning.”

But he stepped back, and she stepped in.

“It’s nice,” she said awkwardly, gesturing to the hallway. Cook mentally kicked himself for the mess, the piles of coats and bags and shoes that littered the floor.

“I made tea,” he replied shortly. The piercing sound of the kettle hurt his ears.

She followed him into the kitchen, taking it all in with her big blue eyes, eyes that wrecked him like he was seventeen again. “It’s nice,” she repeated, sounding more like herself, “It’s very – it’s very you.”

“The fuck’s that supposed to mean?”

She shrugged, and leant against the kitchen table, bag clutched to her stomach.

“Why are you here, Effy?”

“Because…” she spoke quietly, “I needed to – Cook, listen-”

“Nobody calls me that anymore,” he said, equally quietly, and she laughed.

“What? You’re James now, are you?”

He nodded, sniffed, looked away from her. “Cook’s bad news. And I’m Cook with you, Eff, I can’t be anyone else. You have to – you’ve got to go, Effy, you’ve got to go before Naomi wakes up.”

She didn’t move. He was very aware of his own breathing all of a sudden, and the heat of the handle of the kettle under his hands. Slowly, Effy laid her large black bag on the table.

“Fuck it,” he said, and got another mug out of the cupboard with his free hand. “How’d you take it?”

“Same as I always did,” she replied, and out of the corner of his eye he noticed she had sat down. He sort of hated himself for still remembering how she took her tea, but then he hated himself for a lot of things.

He set the mug down on the table with a little more force than was necessary, and threw himself onto the chair that Naomi normally sat in, the mornings they had breakfast together in thick, sleepy silence, before she went to school and he went to bed.

“What are you doing now?” Effy asked.

“Doorman. Club in town. You?”

“This and that.”

She sipped her tea, singular eyebrow raised. “You still speak to Emily?”

He shrugged. “Christmas cards and shit, yeah. She’s a busy girl.”

“And JJ?”

“Haven’t been back since…” he left it hanging in the air. She nodded slowly.

“But do you speak to him?”

“Get the odd email. Who fuckin’ emails anymore? He’s got kids.”

“We’ve got kids. A kid. So’s Panda.”

“Didn’t know that.”

“I stayed with her.”

Ah, Cook thought, it’s all coming out now. Elizabeth Stonem – the Missing Years.

“She’s a teacher in America,” Effy continued, thumb stroking the handle of her mug, “She’s married. Her son’s about ten. I stayed with her after I left, and then I went to a hospital, and then I lived with Tony for a bit – he’s got kids now too – and now I’m back.”

He nodded, exhaling raggedly. He hadn’t smoked since Naomi was born, but he had a craving for it, suddenly, inexplicably. It made his fingers itch.

“Is ET still your favourite film?”

She laughed, and it filled the room.

 

* * *

 

Naomi woke up at half eleven, bones aching with sleep. She could smell bacon. God bless my dad, she thought, stretching. Rubbing dust from her eyes, she grabbed her dressing gown (it was pastel tri coloured toothpaste colour, and her dad had declared it the ugliest thing he’d ever seen when they’d come across it in Tesco once, so she had to buy it on principle) and bounded down the stairs two at a time. She could hear her dad laughing, which was strange. Maybe he was on the phone. The kitchen door was wide open, and sat at the table was a woman she recognised instantly. She was older than the photos they had of her, but her eyes were still the same ice blue, and she sat with her back ram rod straight, chin in the heel of her hand, elbow balanced on the table. Her mother was making her father laugh.

“Am I dreaming?” she said, voice thick. Her mother gasped and looked over to her.

“Naomi…” she began, but her daughter interrupted her.

“Dad? Am I dreaming?”

“Babe…”

“Am I?” (she was _not going to cry_ , for fuck’s sake Stonem, don’t fucking cry)

“No, babe, you’re not dreaming.”

“Am I tripping then?” she demanded.

Effy cleared her throat. “You’d know if you were tripping, Naomi…”

“Did I ask you?” she spat, “Dad?”

“No, Naomi, you’re not-”

“So she’s here then? She’s actually really here?”

Her dad nodded, and averted his gaze.

“Oh for fuck’s sake,” Naomi rolled her eyes, and turned to go back upstairs. She hadn’t had enough sleep for this.

“Naomi,” Effy began again.

“Fuck off!” she called over her shoulder, not turning back to see her mother deflate, exhausted by her rejection.

Naomi ran up the stairs the same way she came down them, two at a time, slammed her bedroom door, threw herself down on her bed and buried her face in her pillow. .

 

* * *

 

“Give her time,” Cook said quietly, and Effy shook out her hair, and wiped the tears that were beginning to prickle in her eyes away.

“She’s upset. It’s understandable.” She paused. “She looks like you.”

“Yeah.”

“Is she still a Stonem?”

“Yeah. Better a Stonem than a Cook.”

“Is it?” she asked, voice heavy, tired, “We’re both criminals, Cook. We’ve both done things.”

“You told a few white lies, Eff. I – I fuckin’-”

He couldn’t say it, not to her.

“Does she know?”

He nodded.

“I couldn’t – I tried saying it, but – don’t get between that girl and Google, is all I’m saying, y’know?”

Effy blinked twice, rapidly like she’d been slapped in the face. “She found out from the _internet_?”

“Not – not everything.”

“Fucking hell, Cook.” Effy put her head in her hands, “What have we done?”

“You fucked up,” said a cold voice from the doorway. Naomi was dressed, in a sensible looking jeans-and-a-cardigan combination. Effy wondered what her seventeen year old self would make of her daughter. “Dad killed someone, you stole money, and then you had a kid. And _then_ , you buggered off, and left him, the murderer – no offense, Dad – to raise your daughter on his own. And he’s done a pretty fucking good job, if I do say so myself, because I’m _great_. Tell her, Dad, tell her how great I am.”

She looked at him pointedly, arms folded across her chest. He shrugged.

“She’s alright.”

Naomi cleared her throat.

“She’s bloody – she’s bloody sodding fucking fantastic, Eff. Happy, Naomi?”

“Not in the slightest, James,” she replied icily, “I’m netball captain. Predicted all As. Solid group of mates, none of whom have ever gone tripping and smashed the other in the head with a rock. I do fucking _volunteering_ for Christ’s sake, I read books to old people! Last night I got arrested, and do you know what for? I was _protesting the closure of a library_.”

“You’re the model child,” Effy said coldly – for some reason Naomi’s goody two shoes-ness irked her, “I can’t believe I produced you.”

“All of it was Dad,” she snapped, “The only thing I get from you is my eyes. Now fuck off.”

Effy glanced over at Cook, who was watching the unfolding scene with apprehension.

“Do you want me to fuck off, Cook?”

“No,” he said before he could stop himself, “I never have.”

Effy turned back to Naomi, and the smirk that graced her features made Cook’s chest tighten considerably. “I was sick when I had you, but I’m better now. And I’m not going anywhere.”

Naomi glanced from her mother to her father, eyes filling with tears.

“But you _left me_.”

“I was sick,” Effy repeated, “but I’m better now.”

Naomi shook her head, not out of disbelief, but because it was too _much_ , and it wasn’t even _noon_ yet. She turned, and ran back up the stairs. Effy sipped her tea, a hint of smugness in her smile.

“Are you seeing anyone?” Effy asked, tone casual but eyes loaded, staring him down.

“Don’t have time,” he replied shortly, but what he meant was _no one has ever, will ever, match up to you, no one’s got eyes as blue as yours, no one else carried my child for nine months, I don’t love anyone like I love you_ , “You?”

She shrugged. “You don’t get many men willing to put up with a mentally ill mother of one for the sake of a lay.”

“A lay with Effy Stonem though…”

She laughed. “No one ever wanted me as much as you and Freddie wanted me.”

He flinched at the sound of the name, but she carried on regardless.

“No one’s ever been willing to put up with me. All the nasty bits of me. No one except you. And…” she left the name hanging.

He wondered how to play it, whether now would be the time he would say how much he felt it, how it weighed upon his chest even now. But the moment passed, and he made a joke of it, because he was always Cook when he was with her.

“High praise. You trying to get me into bed, Eff?”

She shrugged. “Might be. Would that be a problem?”

He glanced at the door, feeling like he was seventeen again in the best way possible. Naomi was upstairs, probably sleeping. And Effy was looking at him the way she did the first time they met, up at him through her eyelashes, daring him. And he hadn’t dared in a long time. In a single movement, he crossed the room, closed the door and kissed Effy, hard. Their teeth clashed and he pushed her back into the table, hand in her hair.

 

* * *

 

Naomi was hungry. Really fucking hungry. She wasn’t sure what the time was, but she did know she hadn’t eaten since yesterday afternoon. Fuck Effy. She wanted something to eat. Her dad had promised her bacon, after all. With a sigh, she heaved herself off her bed and stomped down the stairs, pulling her cardigan tighter round herself. The kitchen door was closed. Odd, she thought, and shoved it open with her shoulder.

“FUCK!”

Her mother and father were on the kitchen table. Well. Her mother was sat on the kitchen table, legs wrapped around her father’s waist. Naomi clamped a hand over her eyes.

“I EAT THERE!”

“Fuck – babe-”

Her parents disentangled themselves, and Naomi spun around, hand still over her eyes.

“Fuck off! Both of you! I eat there! God!”

And she turned and ran up the stairs.

Effy cleared her throat, and slid off the table.

“I’ll talk to her…”

“Eff – I better-”

“No,” Effy shook her head, and gently pushed him away from her, “I should tell her. I should explain. You know, because you were there but she wasn’t. I’ll shout if I need you.”

 

* * *

 

“Naomi.” Effy knocked on the open door, but her daughter did not respond. She was lying on her bed, on her side, knees drawn up to her chin.

“Fuck off Effy, no offense.”

Effy stood in the doorway, and folded her arms.

“I need to explain. I have to explain.”

“Then explain. And then fuck off. And don’t ever fuck my dad again.”

She took a deep breath. “You know who you’re named after, right?”

“Yeah.”

“I was in prison when she – I got let out on day release for the funeral, because I was in for a non-violent crime. And your dad – fuck knows how Emily got hold of him, we all thought he was dead, but he was there and he stood at the back of the church and then later…” she wasn’t sure how much she should say, but she needed Naomi to understand, “I fucked him in the toilets of the crematorium, and then six weeks later I found out I was pregnant.”

There was a moment of silence. Naomi turned her head slowly.

“Why are you telling me this?”

“Because I need you to understand. I found out and I couldn’t tell him because he – you know. So I told Emily. And when I came out, I was six months gone. And he was waiting for me.”

Naomi rubbed her eyes, like she’d been crying, and sat up. “At the gates?”

“Yes. He was waiting at the gates and after that…we were just together. We lived with Emily for a bit, and then she went back to the States and – I don’t think I’ve ever been happier.”

“So what changed?” Naomi asked, throat thick with tears.

“You were born and you were _everything_ , and it was too much.”

“Dad said…” Naomi stared at her feet, and Effy felt it was okay to go and sit next to her. She had been expecting her daughter to smell of baby powder, like she did the last time they were together, but she didn’t. Of course she didn’t. She smelt like daisies, and pears, and cleanliness and purity and it made Effy want to cry. “Dad said you were sick when you were my age. He’s always – he’s always a bit worried about me, was it…?”

“Yeah. And I couldn’t do that to you. I thought about what kind of life it would be for you, a dad on the run and a mum in and out of the loony bin and I just – I loved you too much, Naomi do you see?”

Naomi said nothing for a very long time, and the only sound that filled the room was her soft, quiet breathing. Effy closed her eyes to listen closely to it, a tear catching on her eyelashes. And then she felt a small, soft hand on her arm.

“You’re okay now, right?”

“Yes. I’m okay now.”

Wordlessly, Naomi held out her arms and wrapped them around her mother’s bony shoulders, embracing her.

“Please don’t fuck me over, Mum,” she whispered into Effy’s hair, “Please don’t fuck us over.”

Effy Stonem never made promises she couldn’t keep, so she stayed silent, and held her daughter tightly.

* * *

 

_Seventeen years previously_

Beep. Beep. Be-e-e-e-ep.

“One more ring then I’ll leave it forever,” Emily says to herself (this is the third time she’s lied to herself like this. She can’t leave it. Naomi wouldn’t have left it.)

Beep. Be-

“Em.”

“Jesus- hi, hello.”

“Is everyone alright? Is JJ okay? Panda?”

“Everyone’s fine,” Emily says, “You?”

“As well as I can be. You?”

She sniffs, and runs a hand through her hair. “As well I can be.”

It seems strange to be exchanging niceties with wanted murderer James Cook, but here she is, sat on Naomi’s mum’s kitchen table with a mug of tea in her hand, phone tucked between her chin and her shoulder. She had been almost certain the number wouldn’t work the second time (it was a miracle she got hold of him in the first place – she’d been going through Naomi’s phone, trying to work out who to invite to the funeral and there he was, between Claire With An I and Crystal Mum’s Friend, _Cook_ ) but it had – she figured God owed her - and now they were making small talk.

“How’s um…I mean you might not know or care, the way she played you but uh…” the tone of his voice changes and Emily knows who he’s about to ask about, “you don’t happen to know how Eff’s getting on inside do you? I’d visit her but they’d chuck me in with her and throw away the key.”

If she wasn’t grieving, or burdened with incredibly life changing information, she would’ve made a crack about how he did actually, y’know, _kill a person_. Naomi would’ve. But instead she coughs, as if clearing her throat will get the information out quicker.

“Naoms…asked me to keep an eye on her. Her brother’s just got a doctorate from somewhere poncy like fucking Cambridge or something and she won’t ring him, says she doesn’t want to bother him, and her mum’s in Peru, finding herself, and she’s – Cook, she’s pregnant.”

He whistles, low and long. “Who’s-?” he begins.

“Who do you think you tosser?”

He pauses. She can imagine him in her head, leant against a redbrick wall in some desolate Northern town, cigarette in one hand and phone in the other. Staring at his feet, shivering in the cold. Nodding slowly, and then saying;

“When’s she getting out?”

“June.”

There’s another pause. In her head, he nods again and drags a hand down his face.

“Alright.”

Another pause. Emily thinks about Naomi.

“I’m gonna destroy this phone,” Cook says finally, and Emily jumps a little. “But I’ll be in touch.”

“Stay out of trouble.”

He laughs darkly, and then hangs up.

* * *

 

_The present_

“How come you never got married?” Naomi asked, in between bites of bacon roll.

“Don’t talk with your mouth full,” Cook said, not looking up from the post he was sorting through.

Naomi swallowed hard, and directed the question to her mother ( _having lunch with her estranged mother and father after having walked in on them having sex is definitely the weirdest experience she’s ever had)_. “How come you never got married?”

“Just a fucking bit of paper innit,” her dad said.

“I was asking Effy!”

Her mother shrugged, and sipped her tea.

“Seemed like too much hassle.”

“Would’ve got me arrested,” Cook points out.

“You don’t know that! We were living in London, no one’s fucking heard of you in London!”

“I’m Cook, babe,” he said, “everyone’s fucking heard of me.”

Effy snorted, and turned away from him a little.

“Dickhead,” she said under her breath, and suddenly Naomi could see them perfectly in her mind’s eye – seventeen and breathless, hating and loving each other with equal intensity. The only two people in the world. She felt that she was intruding a little.

Cook had turned his attention to the pile of washing up in the sink. There was silence for a while, the sleepy heavy kind Naomi had dreamed of when she was a child and cried in the night for her mother. And then her father cackled, and span round, brandishing his dish cloth.

“Ha! Woody! Fucking Joe Wood! He lived in London and he knew about me, and he gave me number to Naoms! So you’re wrong, Eff, everyone knows who I am!”

“How the fuck did you know Woody?” Effy said, and their daughter was reminded once again that they were so much bigger than her. Most people’s parents were _so-and-so’s Mum and Dad,_ and that’s all they were. Not hers.

“Sold him coke when I lived in Warrington,” Cook said cheerily, “hey, our Naoms, grab a tea towel would you, this is your shit too.”

He paused to allow his daughter to join him at the sink. And then: “how’d you know him?”

“I think he sold Naomi weed once or twice, he was always hanging around the flat, eyeing up the telly.” She paused, took a gulp of tea. “He fancied me.”

“Don’t they all?” Cook said, and Naomi thought she could hear a little bitterness in his voice. Which was ironic, considering that less than an hour ago he and Effy were going at it on the kitchen table. But Effy was talking about the past, which was so complex and strange Naomi could never quite understand it. The world before she was born still existed to her parents, and the hurts and the mistakes were still present. But at the same time, they were there, in her kitchen, with her school report on the fridge and her dad doing the washing up whilst her mother read the paper. How could they be in both places at once, with both sets of feelings in their hearts? 

* * *

 

_Seventeen years previously_

“How much longer is she going to be? It’s fucking freezing,” Katie grumbles, and Emily says nothing. She pulls her cardigan tighter around herself, and checks her watch. The gates are near silent – she thinks the security guard might be asleep. It’s so early. She wonders if Pandora is sat next to the phone in her flat in Boston, waiting for it to ring and tell her _good news, Eff is free._ Well. Eff has to report to a probation officer every two weeks for the next three months and then a social worker will come and decide whether she’s an unfit mother, but she’s free, technically. JJ is waiting for news but he’s still in Bristol – he’s got a baby due any day now, and a five year old. She wonders, briefly, about Cook, but that thought is shaken away before it’s even fully formed. She hasn’t heard from him since she told him about the baby.

“Is she living with you then?” Katie asks, snapping her chewing gum like they’re sixteen again.

“Mmm, her probation officer said I’m a stable influence.”

“Do you even like babies?”

Emily can’t take her eyes off the spot where Effy will emerge at any moment.

“I don’t dislike them,” she answers her twin noncommittally. She’s due back in the States in September. Anthea will be back from Peru by then, hopefully having found herself. Emily thinks maybe that would be good for Effy, to move back home.

Someone behind her clears their throat, and her sister screams.

“What the _fuck are you doing here, Cook? That’s literally prison,_ ” Katie hisses, “you know, where you escaped from?”

“Mine was in Wiltshire and it wasn’t full of birds,” Cook begins, and Emily spins round and stamps on his foot, hard.

“ _Keep your fucking voice down_ ,” she spits, “ _and tell me why the fuck you’re here_.”

He doesn’t howl in pain like he would’ve back at college, making fun of her. He’s tough and sad, she had thought at the funeral, but maybe that’s because it was a sad occasion.

“That’s my baby coming through those gates there,” he says in a low voice, “I just – I had to see her.”

Emily thinks that Cook and Naomi got on so well because they were both wildly romantic people trying too hard to be cynical.

“You know you got brought up in her trial,” Katie tells him airily, like she’s telling him which celebrity couple have split up, “Her defence was that she wasn’t acting rationally and that everything that happened with you and – what happened that summer, and Naomi getting sick, that all messed her head up.”

“She told me they kept asking her where you are, like she’d know,” Emily says quietly, “I don’t even think you know where you are.”

Cook looks like he’s going to say something, and the gates clang as they open, and there, stood in front of them, is Elizabeth Stonem. Her stomach is huge, it looks odd and out of proportion, tiny Effy and a giant baby bump. Cook swears under his breath. Emily thinks his eyes might be full of tears, but she doesn’t mention it. She puts her hand on his arm. He’s shaking.

“Go to her,” she says, “it’s alright.”

He grins at her, 1000 kilowatt Cook beam, and half jogs towards the gate. It’s like he wants to sprint but something – the part of him that’s still seventeen, and wants desperately to impress Effy – is stopping him. They meet in the middle, and Emily holds her breath like she’s waiting for an explosion.

There is no explosion. There is only quiet; cars whizzing by on the motorway behind them, birds singing for the early morning. Effy and Cook are too far away for the twins to hear what they are saying, but close enough for a low mumble to carry over on the wind.

“What do you think they’re saying?” Katie asks, craning her neck to see them. They’re stood very close together, but not touching.

“I feel like I’m intruding,” Emily says quietly, “Shall we turn around?”

“And miss the reunion of the century? No chance.”

“We’re being rude, Katie!”

“No ruder than they were – shagging at a funeral, honestly? I thought Effy had a bit more class than that.”

Emily tugs her twin’s arm, and Katie sighs. They turn, shuffling in unison, and stare at the jackdaws in the trees. Naomi hated birds, Emily thinks, some people want to come back as birds, don’t they, but not Naomi. She can’t think of what Naomi’s favourite animal was for the life of her. Katie pulls on her arm, and she looks behind her. Cook and Effy are wandering towards them, not looking at each other but holding hands tightly. Effy is smiling, that Effy smile.

In the distance, Emily hears the bark of a dog. She thinks about the fuzzy future they were going to have – a house with a fire and a pug named Nigel. She takes a deep, shuddering breath, and somehow forces herself to smile at Effy.

“We’re going to call her Naomi,” Effy says, “It’s a girl, we’re going to call her Naomi.”

Emily hears the Naomi she carries with her all the time in the back of her head, snort, clear as day, and say; “These two? Raise an actual human child? Fucking hell.”

It makes her laugh.

* * *

 

_The present_

“So what happens now?” Naomi said when she and her father had finished the washing up.

“It’s a Sunday afternoon so, uh, nothing. Unless any of your clothes need washing for school and that?”

“That’s not what I meant,” she replied sternly, “I meant – I mean are you back together, is Effy coming to my parents evening next week, what’s _happening_?”

“There’s a bed and breakfast in town,” Effy said quickly, “I can stay there whilst you and your dad decide-”

“ _You fuckin’ won’t_ ,” Cook interrupted her, “You can stay here. As long as there’s breath in my body and a sofa in my front room you’re staying here, alright Eff?”

“I think we’re a bit beyond napping on your couch, don’t you Cook?”

Naomi was suddenly struck with the image of her mother in pyjamas, shuffling along the landing at seven in the morning, asking her if she wants anything from the shops, talking to her friends parents at school concerts – it seemed strange, like someone else’s life. She and her dad had been fine till now, why did they need Effy back for good, forever? Sixteen years of radio silence and now she wanted to argue with her daughter about what they’re having for tea, to fall asleep on Cook’s shoulder in front of the news?

“That’s not fair, Effy,” Naomi said in a quiet voice, “You can’t come back here and pick up where you left off. That’s not fair. You have to earn it.”

Effy bristled at this, and sat up in her chair.

“I think that’s up to your dad, don’t you?”

Naomi folded her arms and turned her gaze to Cook. He exhaled sharply, swore under his breath.

“Cook?” Effy said, and her voice was heavy with the past.

“She’s staying,” Cook told his daughter shortly, “I’m going to t’pub – coming?”

“I’ve got homework to do,” she said quietly, “I’ll see you later.”

“X Factor tonight!” Cook replied, tone more jovial than the situation required.

“Mmm,” Naomi set down her tea, “Can’t wait.”

“We’ll bring home chips.”

The use of _we_ made her jolt – her whole life, we had meant herself and her dad, James and Naomi, Cook and Stonem.

“I think I might get an early night,” she lied ( _how could she sleep after today?_ ), “School tomorrow and all that.”

Her father nodded, jaw set, and her mother began gathering her possessions – purse, phone, keys – and Naomi remembered how much she had ached as a child, for the image of a dark purple woman’s purse to lie next to her father’s Bristol Rovers mug on their kitchen table.

* * *

 

_Seventeen years previously_

Naomi Elizabeth Stonem is born on the hottest day in August at noon exactly, in a tiny maternity hospital in South London.

Her maternal grandmother cries throughout the twelve hour labour, her mother swears through the first ten hours and screams through the final two and her father remains uncharacteristically silent the entire time.

“She’s so small,” Effy whispers the moment the midwives leave the room, “What if we hurt her?”

They both know she’s not talking about physical harm.

Cook says nothing. He still can’t believe, that something so pure came from the two of them.

“I think,” he says very quietly, “I think all we can do is love her.”

“What if it’s not enough, Cook?”

He doesn’t reply, but he stretches out his arms to take the baby from her.

“What if she hates us?” she asks him, so soft he might have imagined it. “You hate your parents. I – I hated mine, I hate my dad – what if-?”

The baby wrinkles her nose and opens her eyes. She gazes up at Cook like she’s confused – who are you how did I get here what’s going on – and he can’t imagine her ever hating anything. She’s new, it’s new, all the shit that’s happened to him, to the both of them, it doesn’t matter anymore.

“Eff,” he says loudly and suddenly, “I think we should just enjoy it.”

Effy pulls herself up into a sitting position. She smiles that Effy smile – _you don’t know me and you never will_ (but he does know her, he knows her in her bones, they’re the same) – and says; “Come here, then.”

Very gently, Cook moves from the armchair to the bed, his daughter nestled in his arms. With an equal gentleness, Effy kisses his cheek and then the baby’s head, and rests against his chest.

“How do we enjoy it?” she breathes.

“Like this.”

* * *

 

_The present_

“You have to give her time.”

“How much time? Another sixteen years?”

Cook took a long sip of his pint. “If that’s how long it takes, then yeah.”

Effy stirred her orange juice with a straw. “I knew she’d end up hating me.”

“If she knew,” Cook said with a carefulness Effy did not associate with him, “how ill you were. She wouldn’t. She doesn’t. She couldn’t. She couldn’t hate anything, that girl. She’s – she’s a fuckin’ light, Eff.”

Effy said nothing, and watched the ice in her drink go round and round.

“You know,” Cook lowered his voice, “until about a year ago, she cried for you every night. I mentioned it to her once, but she didn’t know what I was talking about, and she can’t lie to save her life, so I think she must’ve been doing it in her sleep. She’s missed you for sixteen years.”

 _I’ve missed you for sixteen years_ goes unsaid.

Effy put her chin in her hand and her elbow on the table. She looked at him, hard, like she wanted to see through his skin.

“I’ve missed her too. I’ve missed-”

She couldn’t finish her sentence, and Cook loved her.

* * *

 

They wandered in at quarter to ten, by which time the X Factor had come and gone, and Naomi was making her lunch for Monday in the kitchen, listening to some radio play.

They were laughing, and the sound vibrated in her bones. I came from that, she thought, that noise is part of my DNA.

Her father came into the kitchen, smiling.

“Not getting an early night then?”

“I think sleeping in the day messed with my body clock. I wanted to do my lunch for tomorrow.”

“Smart girl.” He paused, shoved his hands in his pockets. “Effy – your mum’s gone to have a shower.”

“Right.”

“She’s staying here, Naoms. I love her.”

“Right.”

Naomi slammed the lid of her lunchbox down with more force than necessary.

“Give it time, babe.”

“How much time? Another sixteen years?”

He laughed, and she scowled at him.

“This – today – it’s all I’ve ever wanted. To go to the pub with Effy Stonem and come home and our daughter’s making her lunch for school, it’s – you’ve just got to enjoy it. It means too much not to.”

She had not turned to face him the entire time. “How?” she said in a little voice.

He didn’t answer her question. “The news is on.”

 

 

* * *

 

Effy joined them midway through a story about a gorilla being born in Bristol Zoo, delivered by a doctor from the maternity hospital.

“Have you ever been there?” she asked Naomi, and perched on the arm of the sofa by Cook.

“What, St Michael’s?”

“No, the zoo.”

“Once, when I was about six, with my Nan. Your mum.”

“You didn’t take her?”

“Can’t really show my face around Bris’, can I?” Cook said, “We were living in Liverpool, she went down on the train all by herself.”

“Brave girl.”

They watched the rest of the story in silence, and as the doctor talked about the difficulties of gorillas giving birth, Effy slipped down off the arm of the sofa until she was on Cook’s lap. Naomi glanced at them; the way her mother rested her head on her dad’s chest, Cook’s hand on her knee.

 _Just enjoy it_ , he’d said.

He’d not told her how. Tentatively, Naomi stretched out her legs so they were resting on her dad’s, next to her mother’s. The sight of all three – her own black leggings, her mother’s pyjama bottoms and her dad’s blue jeans – caught in her throat. She leaned her head back against the sofa as the weatherman predicted rain for the next week.

 _This_ , she thought, _this is how you enjoy it_.


End file.
